“She sounds kind of awful.” Natalie shook her head. “Really immature.”

Gabe went out of his way not to say what he wanted to say about Linda in front of Brandon. He knew the basics, but Gabe made sure that while his son knew he hadn’t been planned he knew he was absolutely wanted. Gabe fought like hell for the kid. “She turned out to be, yeah.”

“Brandon doesn’t see her?”

“Never met her.” Never asked, which made Gabe’s life easier. He didn’t have to track Linda down. He could have but vowed only to go down that road if it was important to Brandon, and so far it hadn’t been.

Natalie winced. “Is Rick still with her?”

“Nope.” But they could have each other as far as Gabe was concerned.

She squeezed his fingers and brought their joined hands closer to her mouth. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Smart woman. He knew she’d put the pieces together and find one missing. “Rick has decided he’s really Brandon’s dad.”

She made a strange strangling sound. “What the hell?”

“I used stronger language. Also kicked him the hell out of my house and banned him from the office.” Gabe wrapped his arm tighter around her. “Andy has been stuck in the middle ever since.”

“Does Brandon know?”

And that was the fight. The point he debated with Rick over and over. “Not about any of it. He thinks Uncle Rick and I had a work argument. They’re still in touch but not much.”

She pulled their joined hands closer in to her body until they rested against her chest. “Doesn’t that worry you? Like, that Rick will go behind your back and tell Brandon?”

“Scares the shit out of me. But the one promise he gave me, and I made it clear I would kill him if he broke it, was that he wouldn’t tell Brandon on his own.”

Gabe didn’t fully trust Rick’s word. It was hard to after everything that had happened. The only thing that made it possible for Gabe to keep moving and not spend every day paralyzed with fear was that Andy joined in the threat. Rick would literally lose everything, including possibly Brandon, if he pulled some reckless stunt. Still, tired of waiting, Rick had given Gabe a deadline and it was coming toward them pretty fast.

“And you would.” Her hand dipped into his hair and she nuzzled his chin with her nose. “Go after Rick, I mean.”

“No one hurts Brandon.” That was a fucking vow.

She lowered her head until it fit in the crook of his neck. “No wonder the idea of Rick sending someone here made you hostile.”

“Understatement.”

“Why would he get involved in this?” She touched his knuckles to her lips.

“I know you’re thinking sabotage, but no.” His lips brushed over her hair. He took a second to inhale, breathing in that scent he now associated with her. The one that stomped all over his self-control. “More than likely he thinks he’s helping. He does this work and is trying to put the power of his business between us and the person at the CIA who is determined to cause trouble for you.”

She groaned. “Please don’t try to make your brother out to be the good guy after telling me what he did to you.”

The automatic acceptance. He wondered if she even knew she did it. She liked to fight with him about details, but they generally agreed with each other on most things. And her trust in him after such a short time, knowing her past and who she was, humbled him.

“That’s just the thing, he was. For a long time.” Rick had helped Gabe raise Brandon. Stepped in when work intruded for Gabe or Army travel pulled them apart. That’s what made the breach of loyalty such a deathblow. “He got this idea in his head, and now he’s pushing it. I blame the injury. It’s as if it turned him around and has him going back over every mistake in his life and trying to set them right.”

She rubbed her fingers over his chin. Back and forth over the stubble and through his beard. “Don’t get pissed off here, but is there a chance he is Brandon’s dad?”

He sensed the question before she asked it. He would have been disappointed if she didn’t raise the issue, not with her curiosity and tendency to solve problems. “They were having sex back then, so yes. Biologically.”

“Okay, God. This just gets worse.”

Gabe shifted, because suddenly just lying there made him twitchy. He needed her to know how strongly he felt about this issue.

He lifted his shoulders off the floor, and she inched up just far enough that her face hovered in front of his. “He’s my son, Natalie. I don’t give a shit who provided the sperm.”

She didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Just stared at him, as if waiting for him to say something else, but he’d made his declaration. His point was that simple. Brandon was his son. Period.

A sexy smile broke across her mouth. “You know, you may act like an asshole sometimes, but you’re actually a very good guy.”

With that, the tension building inside him and the charged energy zipping through the room changed into something very hot and, if he was lucky, a little naughty. “Don’t tell people that. I’ll never get a protection job again.”

She lowered her head and put her mouth by his ear. Licked the outer rim as she talked. “How about if I just whisper it?”

She crashed through his defenses. Made him want things he hadn’t wanted in so long. He’d closed some parts of himself off. Enjoyed sex and moved on. Concentrated on Brandon and work and keeping them all moving forward. Then she walked into his life. At first all haughty and demanding, cool in a blue business suit as she fought off any hint of vulnerability underneath. Now, tough and sure, even as her world collapsed and her future darkened. She was the most competent woman he’d ever met . . . and the sexiest.

“That works, but I bet I’d hear it better if you got on your hands and knees.” He drew his finger down her neck and under the band of her sweater collar. “Without the shirt.”

She flattened a palm on either side of his head. Straddled his hips with her knees. “Yes, sir.”

So fucking hot. “You’re going to say that a lot before we’re done.”

“I’m counting on it.”

THIRTEEN

The next morning Natalie stood sipping her coffee while Gabe banged together the two pots they had as he made breakfast after a long night of bedroom activities. She gave him credit for trying. Gave him credit for a lot of things.

She couldn’t imagine raising a child, only to have a sibling threaten to take it all away. It seemed incomprehensible. Also made her rethink her theory about Gabe abandoning his son. A guy who begged a woman to keep his baby, who worried about protecting him and keeping him close, would not just throw him away when he became inconvenient.

And that reimagining scared her. The son piece provided her with a protection against him. It was the one fact that made Gabe less appealing. The one part that reminded her to keep vigilant and not be thrown off by his smooth words and those hands that drove her wild. If he truly was exactly who he seemed to be, the last of her shields would fall.

She’d already shared parts of her past with him that she kept buried from everyone else. Those horrible moments she tried to forget and, in her most desperate times, pretended didn’t happen.

Joining the CIA she’d been subjected to all kinds of questions and daylong lie detector testing. All those questions. The insinuations that she was holding back. She knew the game but did fear her inner thoughts gave her away. The CIA needed to know about her past and if she could be trusted. They did not need to know she was the one who used the knife that night. She repeated that refrain every time her name got chosen for random testing.

The facts she’d hidden for so long were now out there. Gabe could turn around and use every sentence as a weapon, but she knew deep in her soul he wouldn’t. There was no escaping the truth. Something about him pulled at her and quietly shifted every rule she’d made for her life.